


Gathering Lilies on the Road to Salvation

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Abuse, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Incest, M/M, Religious Themes & References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:11:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's such a fine line between Sin and Salvation ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gathering Lilies on the Road to Salvation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [longhairedlady](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=longhairedlady).



> Um. Hi there, everyone. ::waves:: So this is a little disturbing even for me, I think. As mentioned in the warning above, there's non con (not too graphic), child abuse, and a good deal of religious fanatacism and hate. I'm pretty sure I'mma get slammed by someone or other for writing this, but ... well, I think that there are issues underlying this fic that should be explored and dealt with.
> 
> Regarding the child abuse. It isn't pretty--nothing like that is ever going to be pretty--but I tried to keep it as non-graphic as I could.
> 
> Dark fic. Darkficdarkficdarkfic.
> 
> Just a warning.

_My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.  
\--Song of Solomon, 6:2_

\---------------------------

When Kubrick is eight, one of his marbles accidentally rolls into his parent’s room _(not difficult, in a trailer this small)_. He spends a few minutes searching for it before finally catching sight of a glassy gleam from the floor by the bed. As he bends down to retrieve the marble—a tiger eye, and one of his best—his eyes catch on something else: the corner of a piece of paper that's been wedged between the sagging mattress and the broken box spring of his parent’s bed.

The paper turns out to be a magazine, and its pages are almost completely taken up by photographs of naked men. Thumbing through the pictures leaves him with a strange, light feeling in his stomach that rapidly sinks lower. It isn’t _unpleasant_ exactly, just … weird.

His breath comes faster as he turns the pages, and although it’s early morning and still cool in the trailer, he begins to sweat. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him: doesn’t know whether he likes it or not. When the too-loud bark of their neighbor’s dog makes him jump a few minutes later, Kubrick puts the magazine back where he found it with something like relief.

Pausing only to collect his bag of shooters from the living room, he wanders outside to see if Jimmy Morgan is up for a game.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are only two types of people, according to Kubrick’s father, Sheldon Fielding. There’s people like them, who are good and go to Church every Sunday and Holy Day, work hard, and make an honest living. Then there are the Godless Fucks, who make up the majority of the world and include Jews; the French; actors; Methodists; those fat, rich sons of bitches up North; fags; draft dodgers; and Catholics.

“You mind me, boy,” Sheldon tells him every Sunday on the way to church. “You mind me less you wanna end up roasting on a spit in the fires of Hell.”

“Yes, sir,” Kubrick says every time. He isn’t frightened of Hell: has trouble conceiving of it. But he does fear the Divine Retribution meted out if he’s a Bad Boy.

Father, thy name is God.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He’s young and it’s summer vacation and it’s easy to forget all about the magazine until he stumbles across another one—different issue, same content— two months later. This time, the magazine has been rolled up and shoved into the trashcan out back, and Kubrick finds it when he’s throwing out his father’s beer bottles for the week.

He stands by the dented metal can for a few minutes, holding the magazine and shifting from foot to foot. The back of his neck burns, his stomach flutters, and he keeps looking around to see if anyone is watching him. He isn’t sure why, but this … whatever it is … feels private. Like a secret between him and the naked men inside the covers.

After an intense internal debate, Kubrick rolls the magazine back up, sticks it underneath his shirt, and walks it back inside past his father and his older sister Mary Ann and shoves it underneath the mattress in his own room. It makes him excited, looking at his bed and knowing that the men are waiting for him.

That night, he looks over the pictures before going to sleep. He’s hidden underneath his sheet with a flickering flashlight playing over the pages and his tongue a heavy weight in his dry mouth. He thumbs through the magazine over and over again, letting the strange feeling build in his stomach until he’s jittery with pleasant tension.

When he finally goes to sleep, Kubrick’s dreams are filled with glossy bodies and rippling muscles. He wakes in the middle of the night with his heart pounding in his chest and a sticky, wet mess between his legs. For a moment, he’s afraid he pissed the bed again _(although the last time that happened was three years ago)_ , and then even more frightened when he realizes it isn’t pee.

His shrieks bring his father running with a baseball bat and a stormy face. “What? What’s it, boy?” Sheldon demands, puffy eyes darting around for the intruder. The cross he always wears rises and falls quickly on his broad chest.

“I’m sick!” Kubrick sobs, pointing at the mess on his tightie whities.

Sheldon’s eyes narrow and he takes a sniff of the air. The bat comes down but his face goes even darker. “You’re sick all right,” he growls, and grabs Kubrick’s arm and yanks him off to the bathroom.

Kubrick spends the rest of the night lying on his stomach with his ass on fire and his cheeks wet with tears. _Dirty_ , Sheldon called him, and warned him he’d get worse than a spanking if it happened again.

In the morning he brings the magazine to the river and tosses it in. He would have burned the hateful thing and sowed the ashes with salt, but he doesn’t have any matches.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick likes church. He likes the familiar routine of the words and the smell of the warm wood and the ladies perfume. It’s a different world here, bright and nice and clean, and even if Kubrick doesn’t understand much of the sermons, he loves the singing part.

People seem to be _nicer_ in church, even Sheldon. Kubrick’s father offers smiles and shakes hands with everyone _(even Art Danson, whom he spends the rest of the week calling a loud-mouthed cocksucker)_ and refers to Kubrick as ‘my little man’ and ruffles his hair.

Kubrick kind of wishes that it could be church all the time, but he’ll take what he can get.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He’s eleven when he finds the third magazine. They seem to be spreading, because this one is hidden at the back of the pantry behind an old box of dog food that hasn’t been used since Twitcher got run over three years ago. Kubrick, who moved the dog food in desperate, quiet search for food _(Gluttony is the sin Sheldon’s most obsessed with these days)_ , stares at the magazine for a few moments. He feels like a wanderer in the desert, catching glimpse of a mirage.

When he reaches out tentatively, though, the slick feel of the cover is real enough against his fingers. He runs his knuckles across the magazine, remembering how it felt to look at the last one: remembering the whupping he got for what he now knows enough to call a wet dream.

After almost fifteen minutes of the fiercest internal debate he's ever had, Kubrick leaves the magazine where it is. He intends to forget about it, really he does, but he ends up checking the garbage once a day for the next two weeks until he finds it again, discarded under a carton of rotten eggs. The glossy paper kind of stinks, but once he peels off the outer pages, it isn’t too bad.

Bringing the magazine inside is easy as pie because Kubrick’s the only one home. He goes straight to his room, sits down on his bed, and looks. The feeling is stronger this time: not so much in his stomach, but lower. He reaches down, curious and excited and a little breathless, and his pee shooter is hard. He’d be afraid something is wrong with it if it didn’t feel so good.

Carefully, he grips himself the way he does when he’s peeing. That feels good too, and it gets even better when he shifts his grip a little.

It takes Kubrick a few minutes to figure out what he’s doing, but it’s smooth sailing from there. Only a short time later, he’s groaning and shuddering and spurting something sticky and white all over his hand and the pages of the magazine. Panting, he drops to his knees and buries his face into the bed.

That felt good. That felt _really_ good.

Kubrick washes his hand off in the bathroom sink, wipes the magazine off with some toilet tissue, and then hides the naked men underneath his pillow.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick can never tell, when Sheldon has been drinking, if it’s going to be a Good Night or a Bad Night.

On the Good Nights, Sheldon will drink and then cry a little and pass out on the couch or slumped over the kitchen table. On the Bad Nights, Sheldon will drink and then shout and throw things, and if it’s a _Really_ Bad Night there’ll be fists and bruises in the morning.

There’s a third sort of night, too, and Kubrick isn’t sure how he feels about those. Because Dad will be soft spoken and call him ‘little man’ the way he does in church, and let him stay up late to watch TV on the couch, which makes him feel all glowy inside.

But he’ll also put his arm around Kubrick’s shoulders and stroke his forearm, and once he lightly trailed his fingers over Kubrick’s face. Sheldon stares when he touches Kubrick, and Kubrick doesn’t know what the expression on his father’s face means, but his stomach is always tied in knots for days afterwards.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Over the next few weeks, Kubrick discovers that his dingle is good for more things than just peeing. He learns how to touch himself just right, learns that he likes to pull on his balls too: that it’s even better if he smears some cooking lard on his palm first.

The magazine gets replaced once a month. He learns which day it gets thrown out, and pulls the old switcheroo. It’s easy, like clockwork.

He has more of the wet dreams—everyday straight for a week once—but this time he keeps quiet about it: mops up the mess himself. Mom might know it’s happening—she’s the one who washes his sheets and clothes—but she doesn’t tell Sheldon. She doesn’t talk to Sheldon much at all these days, actually, except to ask what he wants for dinner. Doesn’t talk to much of anyone, just drifts around the house cleaning and cooking and sleeping too much.

Kubrick worries about her a little, but mostly he’s too busy enjoying himself.

In the end he gets sloppy, of course: too addicted to the way it feels to restrict his sessions with the magazines to times when the trailer is empty.

It’s a Monday when it finally happens, and Kubrick has the latest magazine open on his bed. The two-page spread he’s looking at is filled with a man with an oiled, broad chest, gleaming black hair, and a huge _(dingle)_ cock. Kubrick is jerking himself fast and hard, one hand on his dick and one hand massaging his balls, and Sheldon opens the door.

Kubrick is too surprised by the interruption to stop for a few, vital seconds. He stares into his father’s eyes—into the shock _(and something else?)_ there—and jacks himself one last time and comes. His breathing in the silence after is thunderous.

Sheldon stares at him. Kubrick stares back.

Then Sheldon moves, grabbing Kubrick by the arm and the magazine by one corner and hauling them both out into the main room of the trailer.

“Ow, Dad, wait!” Kubrick shouts, struggling. He isn’t so much in pain as he is naked, and embarrassed, and frightened—of Divine Retribution, not the look in his father’s eyes: the look he didn’t _(did too)_ see.

Mary Anne and Mom are both in the kitchen cooking dinner, and they look up with wide eyes and gaping mouths as Sheldon drags Kubrick into the living room. He’s painfully aware that his dick is out and flapping around and covered in come. His cheeks feel wet, so he must be crying, but he isn’t really conscious of it.

Sheldon tosses him down into the middle of the living room and turns furious eyes on the women and snarls, “Bring me my belt and some rope.”

Kubrick tries to make a run for it and gets a slap across the jaw for his trouble—hard enough to daze him slightly. “You stay right there, prevert,” Sheldon orders.

Kubrick does. He deserves whatever is coming, he knows: knew that it was dirty and wrong the whole time he was doing it and did it anyway. This is his Punishment and he’ll take it and be forgiven and then everything will be all right again.

He lets his father tie him down across the table, on his back with his pants off and his legs wide, and his stomach is crawling with nausea so bad he has to clench his jaw shut to keep from puking. He’s never been tied down for Retribution before: took it standing up _(or bent over his father’s knee)_ like a man.

Then Sheldon starts in on him and Kubrick knows why he’s tied down. He howls, tears streaking down his face, and thrashes against the rope holding him down and open. Every lash of his father’s belt lands solid on his dick or his balls and it hurts—it hurts so fucking _bad_ that Kubrick passes out.

When he comes to, there’s a pack of ice on his groin and he can hear Sheldon going to town on Mom and Mary Anne, demanding how they could have brought that kind of filth into this house, shouting that they’re responsible for the Preversion of his son, that he’ll teach them to be Whores, to be Satan’s Handmaids.

Kubrick’s too out of it himself to know when their screams stop, but he knows that the beating goes on long after that. Knows that his father’s hands are drenched in red when he comes back out and unties Kubrick. He flinches from the bloodied hand that strokes his face, but Sheldon doesn’t seem to notice.

“Don’t worry, little man,” he says. “I forgive you. You've been corrupted, but you can still be saved. I promise I won’t let you be damned.”

Kubrick licks his lips, tears still trickling from the corners of his eyes at the pain in his groin, and whispers, “Thank you.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The best thing about being a Christian is that it’s never too late to be Saved. That’s what Kubrick figures, anyway.

Catholics have it easier than most, though. All they need to do is say, ‘oops, sorry’ and God gives them a thumb up and an ‘it’s cool, man,’ and that’s it. Of course, Catholics are all going to burn in a lake of fire, so Kubrick isn’t all that sure what good God’s forgiveness is going to do them—or maybe it’s God’s sincerity he doubts.

According to Sheldon, Kubrick’s personal redeemer, the only way to truly be Saved is through Purification and Suffering and Prayer.

The Sunshine Saviors offer all three.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Mary Anne is staying at a friend’s house and Mom is still isn’t able to get out of bed when Sheldon loads Kubrick on the bus a week later. Kubrick kisses his mother’s bruised cheek goodbye and tries not to be hurt when she turns her face to the wall and rubs the kiss away with a trembling hand.

He tries not to think too much during his first few weeks at Sunshine Camp. It hurts less if he doesn’t think about it. Things filter in through the purification rituals, though: words that sink into his brain and lodge there.

For the first time, Kubrick is taught about Hell in a way that he can understand. He hears about Queers and Fags and the horrible fates they’ll suffer in the Pit. Feels lesser torments visited on his own body amidst reminders that it will be worse if he refuses to be Redeemed. If he is obstinate and embraces Eternal Damnation.

Sheldon, Kubrick comes to realize in his clearer moments, must love him very much to want to save him from that.

After the first few weeks, once his body has been purified enough, Kubrick is allowed to start going to services. He kneels in a crowd of perhaps twenty other boys ranging from six to fifteen and offers himself up to Jesus Christ and there’s no pain: only the soft, repeated words of ritual and repentance. He’s a sinner, and diseased, and filthy, but Jesus loves him anyway.

Jesus will Redeem him and save him from the Fires of Hell.

When they send him home again, exactly two months after he arrived, Kubrick feels calm and clean inside. At the bus station, he smiles at his father, shyly, and says, “I’ve been Saved.”

There are honest to God _tears_ in Sheldon’s eyes as he claps Kubrick on the shoulder. “Praise be to the Lord!” he cries, and, “My little man.”

“Praise be,” Kubrick echoes, soft and genuine, and isn’t bothered when Sheldon’s hand lingers on his back on their way to the car.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are no more magazines. No more dreams. There is God and Jesus and hallelujah forever and ever. Kubrick prays while he brushes his teeth in the morning. He prays on the bus to school and during class and while he’s taking exams and when he’s eating his dinner.

When he catches sight of the other boys in gym class and his treacherous body makes a hungry cry, all he needs to do is use the trick they taught him at camp. The paperclip is agonizing after a few seconds, but it makes the devil urge go away, and so he falls to his knees in a stall in the boy’s room and offers thanks, glory be, Jesus is Merciful, God is Good.

Amen.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Devil is waiting when Kubrick gets home from school one Tuesday afternoon. He’s sitting with his hands folded and a wide smile on his face at the kitchen table where Kubrick’s Salvation began. _Sheldon’s_ face, except for the black on black eyes staring out at him.

“My little man,” the Devil calls him an hour later, the third time he has Kubrick face down on the table and screaming. “Daddy’s wanted this for years. You’re such a good little faggot for him, aren’t you?”

Kubrick thinks the Devil is going to kill him. He _wants_ the Devil to kill him. But instead, when he’s finished this time, the Devil laughs and kisses the nape of his neck and strolls out the front door. Kubrick can hear him whistling _I Know That My Redeemer Lives_ as he gets into Sheldon’s car and drives away.

When he’s sure that the Devil isn’t going to come back, Kubrick slides down off the table. It _hurts_ , and he can feel blood trickling out of him like diarrhea, but he pulls his pants up and manages to stumble into his parent’s bedroom. There’s blood everywhere: too much for just one person. Too much _meat_ lying everywhere for just one person. The beads from the bracelet Mary Anne wears _(wore)_ all the time are scattered everywhere, red instead of pink and yellow.

Kubrick falls to his knees and prays, but he knows that God isn’t listening because he heard the words the Devil panted in his ear the first two times. He knows that this is all his fault: that his filthy sin called the Devil up and destroyed his family. Kubrick is Forsaken, he is Damned, and there’s no escaping the Fires of Hell.

 _I’ll do better,_ he promises, sobbing weakly. _Please forgive me, I’ll do better, I promise._ His hands are still clasped together, his head bowed and his jeans soaked to his ass, when the police finally show up half an hour later.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next few years pass in a blur. Kubrick moves from parish to parish at the whims of the state. Some pastors listen to his story with a pitying eye and offer him soft, consoling words, but some sit him down and speak of Demons and a War. In Durghton, a pastor with a twisting scar down one cheek teaches him about holy water and exorcisms.

Kubrick begins to see, slowly, how he can Redeem himself.

God isn’t listening to his prayers, but that doesn’t stop him from offering them. His corruption is strong within him, but Kubrick is stronger. He gives himself one lash for every stray glance, every misplaced thought. When he needs to, he uses the Sunshine Saviors’ paperclip trick.

And he trains.

By the time Kubrick is eighteen, he has managed to mold himself into a Soldier of Christ. He hasn’t had an impure thought in months: has all but fooled his body into forgetting that he’s a filthy prevert. He buys himself his first RV with the money from his mother’s insurance _(placed in a trust fund until he came of age)_ and leaves his latest foster home to hunt down every last one of the Devil’s Minions On Earth that he can find.

Salvation is at hand.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick’s first demon nearly kills him. He gets distracted by the black on black eyes _(so familiar)_ and the demon’s insinuating purrs _(liked it when Daddy did you, didn’t you, faggot)_ and almost forgets that he has a bottle of holy water in his left hand and a book of exorcisms in his right. He gets a nasty knock on the head and a broken wrist for his trouble, but in the end the demon flees, leaving its host in a slumped, dead heap. Kubrick drags himself back to his RV, patches himself up as best as he can, pops a half a dozen pain pills, and goes to sleep.

He doesn’t know whether it’s the drugs or the demon, but when he sleeps he dreams of the trailer he grew up in. Dreams of his chest sliding against the rough wood of the kitchen table, and the Devil’s voice in his ear, and the feel of lips pressed to the nape of his neck. He wakes disoriented and sweating, and crying out in a lost little voice for his mother.

There’s no way Kubrick is spending the rest of the night alone in the dark, and he doesn’t feel clean enough to open his Bible. In the end, he drives out of the campground where he parked for the evening and finds a 24-hour gas station. He spends a few minutes wandering the aisles aimlessly and getting strange looks from the sixteen-year-old attendant, and then comes to a dead stop.

There’s a display of Jesus statues over by the donuts.

No matter how Kubrick twists his path, he can’t avoid those soulful eyes. It should make him feel worse, but instead he’s strangely comforted. Slowly, he creeps close enough to reach out and brush one of the statues with the fingertips of his good hand.

Cool, soothing calm flows into him from the statue. It isn’t forgiveness, not yet, but it’s enough to remind Kubrick that he hasn’t been forgotten. His wild thoughts settle and the pain in his wrist fades.

When he brings one of the statues up to the register, he’s confident enough to look the attendant in the eye and wish him a good night and God bless.

The kid eyes him warily and doesn’t say anything, but Kubrick is too busy cradling his new figurine to notice.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After that, whenever things get difficult, all Kubrick has to do is find a new statue or painting or knick-knack to add to his collection. It’s comforting to be able to turn anywhere in the RV and find Jesus looking back at him. He’s no cleaner than before, but he’s ... he's _insulated_.

If he can’t meet any of those eyes without flinching a little inside, well … it’s just another reminder that he hasn’t found his Redemption yet: hasn’t escaped from the Fires of Hell.

But when he holds the little figurine, his first find, he knows that someday he will.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick is twenty-five when he’s saved from a vampire nest—real, honest to God vampires, if you can believe it—by a hunter who can’t be much more than a kid. The kid is good, though: eyes cold and hand steady on his machete. Although Kubrick is slightly woozy from blood loss, his stomach gives an unsettling little flip as he watches the hunter move.

It’s been years since he had any urges at all, but this kid is breaking down his conditioning without even trying: strong and confident and beautiful.

Afterwards, the hunter insists on patching him up. Kubrick isn’t so out of it that he doesn’t know he’s only doing it to check and see if he got himself infected, but that knowledge doesn’t stop his chest from going warm and achy. He leans his head against the wall of the abandoned warehouse and wishes that he had a paperclip on him.

“What’s your name?” he whispers.

The hunter’s hands are gentle on Kubrick’s wounds: deft. When he speaks, his voice is even softer than Kubrick’s.

“Gordon Walker.”

Kubrick’s hand comes up, flutters just a few inches from that dark, perfect skin, and then falls again. Gordon doesn’t notice, too intent on what he’s doing, and the warmth in Kubrick’s chest sinks lower.

Between one beat of his heart and the next he understands.

The back roads of America are his desert, and Gordon is his Temptation. All Kubrick has to do is resist, harden his heart and turn away from his Sin, and he’ll finally be Saved.

There are tears in his eyes when Gordon finishes stitching him up, not of pain but of joy. When Gordon finally raises his eyes, Kubrick smiles at him: wide and dazed and grateful. Gordon just looks right back at him, meeting him stare for stare.

“You’re a crappy hunter,” Gordon says dispassionately. “You should get out of it before it kills you.”

Kubrick doesn’t protest because Gordon’s right. He’s not very good at this. His teachers were all men of the cloth with little to no practical experience, and it’s mostly luck and the will of God that has gotten him this far. But it doesn’t matter.

“I can’t quit,” Kubrick confesses, shaking his head. “I’m on a mission from God. I can’t turn my feet away from the path.”

“Whatever floats your boat, buddy,” Gordon says, standing and wiping his bloodied hands on his jeans.

Kubrick stares at the dark smudges left behind, knowing they’ll stain, and says, “My name’s Kubrick.”

“Okay.” Gordon is already packing his first aid kit back up, leaving Kubrick free to stare as much as he wants to.

“You could teach me,” he says. “You could—”

“Got enough to worry about watching my own ass,” Gordon interrupts, and snaps his kit closed. “You're gonna want to get out of here before the cops show.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick runs into Gordon again two months later in Florida and feels no real surprise. Gordon is his fate, after all: Damned or Saved, one way or the other. He can try to run if he wants, but he won’t be able to avoid it.

Kubrick doesn’t want to run.

They finish the hunt together, and this time Gordon invites him out for drinks. Kubrick thinks of his father, and the way that he got when he drank _(that was one sin that the pastor talked about that Sheldon never could get behind)_ , and then says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

He can’t quite bring himself to drink when they get there: orders a Coke—no, nothing in it—from the bartender and flushes a little under the disdainful stare he gets in return. Leaning tables, scored bar, sawdust on the floor: this isn’t exactly the kind of establishment you come for anything other than the hard stuff. Kubrick sticks out like a sore thumb and he’s painfully aware of it.

Gordon doesn’t seem to notice. He tosses back a shot of whisky and then starts in on a beer. Those compelling eyes of his are heavy on Kubrick’s face as he drinks.

Silence stretches out between them, uncomfortable and sticking to Kubrick’s skin, and then Gordon finally asks, “You following me?”

“It’s fate,” Kubrick answers, sipping on his Coke. There isn’t enough syrup in it, but he’s so on edge that he can barely taste it anyway. “God’s will.”

“Yeah, right,” Gordon says dismissively, and tosses back the rest of his beer. With his eyes on the bartender as he tries to flag him over, he adds, “Look, I’ll give you a crash course, but that’s it. And I don’t want to hear any more of that God crap while I’m doing it.”

“Okay,” Kubrick agrees quickly, and his stomach tightens when Gordon licks his lips clean. “I, uh, I gotta use the can.”

The paper clip, which he hasn’t had to resort to in years, works just as well as always. When he’s as clean as he’s going to get, Kubrick kneels in the stall with his elbows on the cracked toilet seat and his pants down around his ankles and prays for strength. There’s no sensation of actually being listened to, of course, not a filthy faggot like him, but the routine is soothing.

He stays there, praying, until there are tears running down his cheeks from the pain in his cock, and then he finally stands. He’s unsteady on his feet, leaning against the side of the stall as he pulls the paperclip off with a sob.

“Thy Will Be Done, Lord,” he whispers to the accompaniment of someone puking over by the urinals.

He can do this. He can.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick has always been a fast learner, and now that he has a teacher who has been in the trenches, everything seems to be slotting into place. Gordon teaches him routines to get his body into shape: to improve both strength and endurance. He shows him how to handle a gun and a knife with the ease of breathing and, gradually, persuades him that having a beer or two after a successful hunt isn’t the end of the world.

Kubrick is back to purifying his body at least once a day—and sometimes more often than that—but it doesn’t seem to be working. His corruption is strong with him, driven on by Gordon’s nearness, and all the paper clips in the world can’t stomp it out.

Almost two months after he begins hunting with Gordon, Kubrick wakes in the middle of the night with telltale wetness between his legs and thinks about cutting it off.

He doesn’t.

That would be cheating.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gordon has this way of smiling: soft and genuine and true. He doesn’t do it very often—not for Kubrick, anyway—but every once in a while after a successful hunt he’ll clap Kubrick on one shoulder and say, “Good work.” And then there’s that smile: the one that lights Kubrick up from the inside out and makes his head spin.

He thinks he might face the Devil again for that smile.

He may be a bit slow about some things—mostly about other people—but he isn’t stupid. He understands that Gordon doesn’t like him: is actively annoyed by him most of the time. Gordon won’t step foot in Kubrick’s RV, and the one time that Kubrick mentioned God in his presence, his eyes went flinty and hard.

Gordon is the type of man Sheldon taught Kubrick to believe is Damned, and he usually looks at Kubrick with a species of contempt, but that doesn’t stop Kubrick’s resolve from weakening with every breath. For the first time, he thinks that maybe he can’t be Saved. Maybe he’s been Damned right from the start and the last twenty-five years have been some kind of sick joke.

But no matter what he tries, he can’t bring himself to turn away from his sickness. He’s never wanted anything but the Lord’s mercy and his father’s love, and suddenly all he can think of are Gordon’s competent hands, and his beautiful dark skin, and the musky smell of him. He thinks of Gordon’s smile when he drives along behind the man’s El Camino, and of Gordon’s bravery and confidence in his own abilities.

Gordon doesn’t Believe, but he has faith all the same, and more than Kubrick has seen in some pastors. He has faith in his own body, and his weapons, and the righteousness of killing every Minion of Satan that he comes across.

 _This is love,_ Kubrick thinks. And sometimes, in the dark of night with Jesus staring down at him from every side and his sin churning low in his gut, he thinks it might be worship.

Somewhere along the way, Kubrick has become an idolater, and the wonder of it is that he doesn’t mind.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They’re having fried chicken in a diner, midway between a ghost in Idaho and what might be a real live witch in Montana, when everything changes. Kubrick is telling Gordon about one of his first hunts, complete with gestures and sound effects because it makes Gordon smile a little. For the first time, he seems purely amused instead of slightly scornful, and just that is enough to have Kubrick grinning like a loon.

“How’d you get out of that?” Gordon asks, once Kubrick gets to the part where the ghoul cornered him in the abandoned house it had been squatting in.

“It jumped me and we both went out the window,” Kubrick says, floating his hand through the air to illustrate their descent.

One of Gordon’s eyebrows raise. “And?”

“Did I mention the house overlooked a river?”

Gordon bursts out laughing hard enough that he has to wipe his eyes. “Man, I don’t know who was stupider. That damned ghoul for shacking up next to a fucking _river_ , of all things, or you for going in after it without backup.” It’s said without any real meanness, which is wonderful, but then Gordon adds, “You’ve come a long way,” which makes Kubrick’s chest ache in the most painful, pleasant way possible.

He drops his eyes, grin faltering a little, and says, “God has favored m—”

“Bullshit. God doesn’t have anything to do with it. You worked your ass off for this.”

“I guess,” Kubrick says, shrugging.

He can feel Gordon’s eyes on him for a long moment and then Gordon says, softly, “You’re a good man, you know. A good person.”

Kubrick glances up, half-sure that Gordon will be laughing at him, but Gordon is just regarding him with this odd little half-frown and intent eyes. Kubrick flushes all over, confused and happy and a little nauseous. He can’t look away, and Gordon’s frown keeps getting deeper, but he isn’t looking away either.

When the waitress comes to ask how they’re doing, the moment shatters, leaving Kubrick’s heart fluttering weakly in his chest. He looks up at her smiling face and doesn’t know whether he wants to thank her or slap her.

He spends the rest of the evening sneaking glances at Gordon and doing his best to ignore the tight heat in his groin. When they part company for the night, Gordon puts a hand on Kubrick’s shoulder and it lingers, just a moment too long. Kubrick climbs into his RV and sits in the driver’s seat with Jesus staring at him from all sides and for the first time, doesn’t really feel the weight of those eyes.

If this is what it’s like to be Damned, then maybe Kubrick doesn’t want to be Saved after all.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He kisses Gordon in Idaho. They’re sitting at the table in Gordon’s motel room and talking about how best to take on a nearby vamp nest. It’s summer, so Gordon’s only wearing his undershirt, and Kubrick has been fascinated by the thick cording of scar tissue that runs along his upper arm. Like something tried to tear it apart. Gordon must have been very brave and strong to survive something like that.

“Werewolf,” Gordon says abruptly, and Kubrick starts, pulling his eyes away and looking up at Gordon’s face.

“S-sorry?”

Gordon has that look again, the one from the diner, the one that fills Kubrick with both unease and rapture. He lifts his arm slightly without taking his eyes from Kubrick’s and says, “It hit me from the side. Got me pretty good before I put a few silver bullets in it.”

Kubrick’s going to say something, he is, but instead he finds himself leaning over the table and kissing those tempting lips. For all of three seconds, he can taste Gordon, intoxicating and virile, and then Gordon pulls away.

Kubrick shrinks back to his own side of the table, horrified by what he just did. Gordon will hate him now: will call him a fucking faggot and throw him out on his ass. Oh Lord in Heaven, Kubrick has doubly damned himself with that kiss: has tossed away his hopes of Salvation and the balm of Gordon’s presence in one thoughtless impulse.

But Gordon only looks at him for a moment with those soft, brown eyes, and then shakes his head slowly. “Not a good idea,” he says.

“Y-yeah, okay. A-alright.” Kubrick’s words fall out with stuttering eagerness. He’s so relieved that he’s sweating.

Gordon smiles—one of _those_ smiles—and then says, “So I think we should hit them from the side entrance.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next time, it’s Gordon’s fault. He’s drunk. They’re _both_ drunk, but Gordon’s worse. They just worked their way through a nest in Nevada, and Gordon is more wrecked than normal afterward. He drinks like a man who has just seen himself Damned, and Kubrick thinks that it has something to do with one of the vamps from tonight.

Gordon wasted her as easily as the others, no pause, but afterward he knelt next to her body. He held her hand and his lips moved soundlessly, and there was a glimmer of moisture on his cheeks that Kubrick thinks Gordon was unaware of.

Kubrick stood watch and asked no questions. He and Gordon don’t have that kind of relationship.

But he knows, when Gordon grabs him on their way out of the bar and slams him up against the wall, that it isn’t really about him. Gordon’s mouth is demanding on his, tongue hot and making his gut squirm, and despite the overwhelming reek of alcohol in his mouth and nose, Kubrick wants this. He wants it so badly.

If he’s going to finish Damning himself, though, he’s going to do it for something real.

Putting his hands up on Gordon’s shoulders, he shoves him away. “No,” he pants. “Not like this.”

Gordon’s face goes dark and hostile and dangerous, and Kubrick doesn’t even see the fist coming. When he wakes up an unknown amount of time later, there’s a wretched, cringing part of him that expects his pants to be around his knees and his ass to be on fire. But they aren’t and it isn’t. Gordon just cold clocked him one and left him lying there. Just _left_ him.

It isn’t until Kubrick knocks on Gordon’s motel room door the next morning and a family of four answers that he realizes just how completely he’s been abandoned.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s three months and eight hunts before Kubrick sees Gordon again. It isn’t an accidental meeting, although Kubrick no longer believes that God is the one pushing them together. No, that’s someone a little further south.

He’s nursing a beer in a rundown bar when Gordon sits down across from him. When he looks up, Kubrick is both surprised and not to find him there. The world around him, which has been gray and tasteless for so long, fills in with color again in a rush that’s almost painful.

“I heard you were in town,” Gordon says.

“Yup,” Kubrick answers, his voice hoarse. He doesn’t trust himself to offer more: is too afraid it would come out in a string of pleas and womanish questions.

Gordon sits there silently for a moment, studying him, and then asks, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Kubrick knows Gordon well enough by now to recognize that as the apology it is, so he nods. “That’d be nice.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s only a matter of time after that, and Kubrick can feel the weight of inevitability dragging him down to Hell. He shares a couple of fumbling kisses with Gordon, and is so nauseous after the first few that he has to excuse himself and dash to the bathroom. It gets better, of course—anything gets better with familiarity—and sooner rather than later he has his hand on Gordon’s cock.

Gordon comes with a muffled curse, so beautiful, and Kubrick kisses that soft skin, just once, before tucking him away. That night, he dreams again of Sheldon and the Devil and awakes with a phantom ache in his ass. He bites his lip and reaches out and pulls his stuffed Jesus close to his chest, but it’s still hours before he’s calm enough to get out of bed.

For a few days after that, he’s skittish around Gordon, until Gordon corners him and demands to know what the fuck is going on. Kubrick tries explaining that he can’t do this, what if the Devil comes back, what if Hell is that kitchen table on some kind of endless loop, and Gordon kisses him silent. Gordon kisses him everywhere he can reach, and for the first time Kubrick feels like the one being worshipped. Feels special and loved and _wanted_.

His hands don’t shake when he undresses later that night. This is his choice, and Gordon is worth it, and he can do this. He can.

Halfway through it, Kubrick realizes that he’s crying, his tears wetting the pillow where his face is shoved into it, and all he can think of is that this is a mistake, that this is wrong, that there’s no coming back from this. Then Gordon’s movements slow, and Gordon’s voice murmurs soothing words into his ear, and his hands are gentle: coaxing. Kubrick’s tears taper off until he’s breathless with heat, roasting on the Fires of Hell and loving it.

Afterwards, when Gordon lays tender, loving kisses against the side of his neck, Kubrick doesn’t feel quite so Damned. Maybe he had it wrong all along. Maybe _this_ is his Salvation. This love.

 _Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Will,_ Kubrick prays silently, and for the first time in years he feels heard.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kubrick knows that Gordon hates ‘that God crap’, but in the days that follow he’s jittery with the lightness of his own Salvation and he can’t keep his mouth shut. If he had another friend, then he might have turned to them instead, but he doesn’t. He has his RV and his collection of Jesus kitsch and Gordon.

That last thought never fails to make him smile and blush as a slow warmth unfurls through his chest. Even if he had another friend, he has to admit then, they wouldn't be the ones he would choose to share this with: all the joy and peace and happiness bubbling around inside of him.

Gordon loves him. Gordon touches him with those strong, capable hands and talks to him with that soft voice. Gordon has driven the Devil away, and burned that horrible kitchen table, and Kubrick just has to let Gordon know how much he is loved in return.

So he slips Bible passages in with Gordon’s notes and maps: love letters. Once, he’s even daring enough to use some of the Song of Solomon, which Sheldon always denounced as being far too racy but which Kubrick has always privately thought is the most beautiful thing he’s ever read. He tells Gordon about the power of God’s will over coffee in the morning and about His grace during lunch, being careful just to share and not to lecture. When they lay next to each other trying to catch their breaths at night—when he feels that gentle ache in his ass that no longer makes him think about the Devil, but only about peace and forgiveness—he whispers about His unflinching love, which is the closest he can come to vocalizing just how deep his own love goes.

Gordon remains stone-faced and unreceptive, but Kubrick knows that if he can just find the right words that Gordon will understand. Then they’ll stand together in God’s grace, and God will lift them up, and they will be Exalted.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Almost half a year after the first time Gordon moves inside of him, Kubrick realizes that he’s been going about this all wrong. He has the means for Gordon’s Illumination in his RV. The perfect, most wonderful message of love he can send.

Gordon grumbles when Kubrick edges off the bed in the middle of the night, reaching after him, but then settles again. Kubrick gives Gordon’s sleeping form a beatific smile and then slips outside. His hands tremble as he retrieves the small, magic-eyed Jesus statue from its place of honor on the dashboard of his RV. His first and oldest companion. The life raft that saved him when the night got too lonely and hostile and terrifying.

Whispering prayers beneath his breath, he breaks into Gordon’s car and reaffixes Jesus to His new home.

“Let him see my love,” he says. "Please, help me show him." Then, giving Jesus one final pat, he locks the car up again and hurries back to the warmth of the motel room and Gordon’s beautiful, dark skin.

He’s woken up in the morning by the door to the motel room slamming open and bolts upright in the bed. Gordon isn’t next to him anymore, of course: he doesn’t sleep as late as Kubrick likes to. But when Kubrick blinks sleep-heavy eyes at the doorway, he finds that Gordon is there: that Gordon is the one who threw the door open. He steps into the room now, not bothering to shut the door behind him, and hurls something at Kubrick.

“What the fuck is this?”

It’s the first time Gordon has ever actually yelled at Kubrick, and that hurts more than the impact of the projectile with Kubrick’s forehead. His vision swims and he blinks rapidly to clear it as he feels around on the sheets for whatever Gordon threw at him. Then his hands close over smooth, familiar plastic, and his chest gives a painful clench.

“G-Gordon, I—”

“I don’t need to be _saved_!” Gordon snarls. His voice twists on the last word, turning it into something filthy and low, and Kubrick clutches his magic-eyed Jesus close. He ducks his head, and no matter how hard he tries to hold them in his tears are falling now, fast and hot.

“Fucking nutball,” Gordon says, disgusted.

Kubrick hears an echo of his father in Gordon’s tone. He jerks his head up, half-expecting to see Sheldon there—or worse, the Devil. Instead, he gets a watery image of Gordon’s back as he strides out the door. Gordon slams it shut behind him and a minute later, Kubrick can hear the roar of the Camino’s engine as Gordon accelerates out of the parking lot—dangerously fast from the sound.

He waits at the motel for almost two weeks before he finally admits to himself that Gordon isn’t coming back.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gordon’s absence lifts the scales from Kubrick’s eyes. He hasn’t been Saved: just deluded. He’s more Damned than ever, with Gordon’s touch all over his skin—inside of him—and he goes back to purifying his body with a rigor that he knows borders on fanatical. Sometimes, he’s a little too enthusiastic about it and has to spend the next day in bed, lying there underneath the pitiless stares of all of his Jesuses and crying into his pillow.

The magic-eyed Jesus has been demoted to his living room counter, hidden amongst almost a dozen other statues. On the dashboard is a new acquisition: a bobble-headed Jesus wearing aviator goggles and a t-shirt that has ‘Jesus Is My Co-Pilot’ written on it in thick, black letters. Kubrick touches the Jesus Aviator absently when he drives, but that sense of being seen—of being _heard_ —is gone and he doesn’t think it’s ever going to come back.

Not for a filthy, sinning faggot like himself. Not for a fucking nutball.

The only good thing to come out of his time with Gordon is his new level of skill when it comes to hunting. Kubrick no longer makes dumb, amateur mistakes: is actually making sort of a name for himself among his colleagues. He keeps a tally of his kills underneath the dashboard: a collection of tiny crosses scratched into the plastic.

But he can’t shake the feeling that he can cover the entire interior of the RV with those crosses—he can cover the world with them—and it still won’t be enough. He’s Damned, and the Devil is laughing at him in his dreams, in the diners he stops at, on the highways he travels.

‘I’m waiting for you, my little man,’ the Devil tells him, and scrapes its nails over the kitchen table. ‘Come on home, boy. Come home to Daddy.’

They say you can't go home again, but Kubrick knows the truth. There's only one road, and the only place it leads is home: is that cramped trailer with the scent of blood in the air that he hadn't even noticed until the Devil was done with him.

Everything in between is just shadows and dust.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After almost two years on his own, Kubrick is surprised when he’s approached in a diner by a brown-haired, slightly pudgy man with dark eyes.

“You’re Kubrick, right?” the man says.

“Um. Yeah?” Kubrick says, and the man slides into the booth across from him and then offers his right hand.

“I’m Joe Creedy,” he announces. “I seen you a few times at Harvelle’s.”

“Oh.” Kubrick hasn’t actually been to Harvelle’s for six months: not since he heard some other hunters talking about Gordon the last time he was there. He doesn’t want to chance running into the man again.

“Look, I uh, I heard you were good. And I kinda need some help on a hunt.” Creedy rubs the back of his neck and grins. “I saw you come in and I thought it must be fate, y’know? ‘Nother hunter showing up here now.”

 _Fate,_ Kubrick thinks, and looks down at his hands. There’s only one fate he believes in anymore, and that’s the one waiting for him on the other side of death. The one he won’t ever be able to escape, no matter how much he struggles.

But when he looks up, he makes himself smile.

“Just a coincidence, I guess,” he says. “So, how can I help?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Creedy makes a pretty good partner. Being the one in charge takes some getting used to, but Kubrick guesses that life in foster care made him pretty adaptable. Creedy isn’t any more religious than Gordon, but that’s okay. Kubrick has learned his lesson on that score and keeps the man out of his RV. Keeps his ‘God crap’ to himself. Creedy knows he goes to church every Sunday and sometimes during the week, and that’s about it. They don’t make a thing about it.

Truth be told, Kubrick doesn’t really know much about Creedy outside of his weapon skills and his knowledge of the supernatural, and he doesn’t care to. Doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t get asked questions in return. It’s a good arrangement, and if life isn’t precisely _good_ , it isn’t exactly Hell either.

Not yet, anyway.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Hey, don’t you know Gordon Walker?”

It’s been ten years since he last saw Gordon and Kubrick still jumps at the man’s name. He looks over at Creedy with too-wide eyes. “What makes you say that?” he asks with a hoarse, dry voice.

Creedy gives him a weird look in return: half-curious, half-wary. “Just heard it around, man. I heard you taught him.”

Kubrick laughs at that, and if it comes out a little shaky he doesn’t think it’s too noticeable. “No, he taught me.”

“Oh,” Creedy says, and then shrugs. “Anyway, he’s in jail. Illegal weapons charge.”

“Oh,” Kubrick says, and his stomach gives an unpleasant roll.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It takes him almost six months to work up the nerve to go visit Gordon. When he’s signing into the visitor’s log, the pen slippery in his sweaty palms, he realizes that he doesn’t even know why he’s there. Gordon isn’t going to want to see him, after all, and he doesn’t want to see Gordon. Not really.

But he goes into the room anyway, and he sits down in the cheap plastic chair, and he waits.

Gordon is just as beautiful as he remembers.

Kubrick finds himself trembling as the man moves forward and sits down on the other side of the glass and picks up the phone. Gordon's expression is unreadable. His eyes are even harder than they used to be: like the polished marbles Kubrick used to shoot when he was a kid.

When he picks up on his end, the first words he hears from Gordon’s lips aren’t ‘hey there’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or even ‘what the fuck are you doing here?’ They’re ‘Sam Winchester.’

“Um. What?” he says, too confused to remember to feel awkward.

Gordon tells him everything. Kubrick listens to tales of demons, and a coming war, and there’s a part of him that wants to believe, but Gordon … well, he never went in for this kind of stuff. He was never a Believer. And now he’s talking about God and a Mission and the Antichrist and Kubrick just … well, it’s just too good to be true.

He wants to yell at Gordon for making fun of him when he came all the way here to visit and then slam the phone back down on the cradle and storm out. He _wants_ to.

But in the end, what comes out is, “I’ll check it out.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Most of the facts Gordon gave him are accurate. Winchester’s mother died in a freak fire, and so did his girlfriend at college. Other people with similar deaths in their families have gone a little nuts and killed their nearest and dearest—most noticeably a kid in Michigan, and Winchester was there for that. A devil’s gate in Wyoming was, indeed, opened, and Winchester was also there for _that_ , but near as Kubrick can figure, he was trying to stop it from happening.

He fidgets while he waits for Gordon on his second visit. Fidgets right up until the moment Gordon sits down across from him and then makes himself hold still. He tries to sound confident as he tells Gordon that he’s wrong about this Sam Winchester kid and he does well right up to the point when he makes the mistake of meeting Gordon’s eyes again.

Kubrick has a lot of experience with faith. He’s seen true believers and false by the score, and he can tell the difference easy as pie. Somehow, sometime over the last ten years, Gordon has become one of the former.

Three epiphanies hit Kubrick in quick succession, leaving him slightly winded.

He still loves Gordon. Loves him, maybe, more than ever.

Gordon still loves him. He has to: to trust Kubrick with something of this magnitude.

Antichrist or not, Sam Winchester is one dead asshole.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When he goes back to visit Gordon for a third time, Kubrick still has the headache that Sam’s brother gave him. It’s a distant, unimportant pain. His stomach churns excitedly, and his chest is light with the first, faint fluttering of something Kubrick thinks might be hope.

Sam Winchester is, in fact, the Antichrist. The signs of God’s favor—of God pointing him in Winchester’s direction and letting him loose like a hunting dog—are too strong to ignore. Kubrick was wrong in a way, all those years ago when he thought Gordon was his Salvation, but he was right too.

Because Gordon led him here. Gordon has Shown Him The Path.

“You were right,” he says, and Gordon’s eyes are warm on him.

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” he says, and gets that smile in return. That wide, earnest smile that makes him warm and loose in his groin.

He hesitates then: isn’t sure if Gordon wants to hear it, no matter how much he may have changed. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter because he can’t make himself hold it in.

“I think you’re my destiny,” he whispers. The words come out almost reverent. “I think … I think that God meant for us to find each other. He meant for you to Save me.”

Gordon doesn’t scowl at the confession. Instead, his smile deepens as he lifts one hand and presses it against the glass. “I think so too,” he says.

It might be a lie. Kubrick isn’t quite dumb enough or in love enough not to know that there’s a good chance Gordon is using him to get at Sam Winchester. But that’s okay, because Kubrick is using Gordon in his own way: using him as a life rope to drag himself away from the Fires of Hell.

Salvation.

Freedom.

Escape.

Smiling back, Kubrick raises his own hand and lays it over the glass across from Gordon’s. “I love you,” he says, and means it.

And Gordon says, “Amen.”


End file.
